Intoxicate
by MoriartySlytherin
Summary: Harry didn't leave the Department of Mysteries as unscathed as everybody thinks. A seed of something has taken hold deep inside of him. This is one obstacle he might not be able to overcome. And when it matters most, he might not even want to.


So I don't know what this is. I was just suddenly overcome with the need to write. It happens every so often. Usually I lose whatever was in my head by the time I find a pen and paper. Or the second I go to write it down the never-ending monologue of stories in my head inexplicably dries up. But yeah. I got this down. And I've been told that if you want to write the best thing to do is a) actually write something and b) let people read it. So I'm posting it.

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He couldn't stop thinking about it. it was just there, constantly in the back of his mind,no matter how many times he tried to push it away, to think of something, anything else, he kept coming back to it. He'd tried to keep busy in order to distract himself, but his summer homework had only taken so long and the Dursleys were apparently ignoring him this year, meaning he hadn't even been given any chores to he was left staring unseeing up at his ceiling thinking about 'that' moment.

He should be thinking about Sirius, that was the worst thing. His godfather was dead. He should be thinking but him, mourning him, and he was sort of but even the hurt and anger and guilt and remorse couldn't distract him for long. Because thoughts of Sirius led to thoughts of Sirius falling through the veil, which led to chasing Bellatrix through the ministry, which led him once more to that moment. The moment when everything had changed. The moment he had discarded all of his morals and principals in exchange for pure hatred.

The moment he had cast the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix Lestrange.

The moment he had performed one of the vilest pieces of magic possible, an Unforgivable Curse. That moment. And the way it had made him feel. He had been trying and failing to put into words the multitude of emotions that had coursed through him but no such words would come. Nothing could encapsulate the magnitude of what he had felt. His vocabulary was hardly extensive but he doubted even Hermione, with all her incredible intellect, all the books she had memorised, could put a name to what he had experience.

The shock of it had been so severe he had lost his concentration, lost the intensity required to power the spell, so it had only lasted for an instant. And yet at the same time it had seemed to last forever. That indescribable something had consumed him so entirely in that one eternal instant,it was all there was was. Nothing mattered, nothing even existed outside of that exhilarating, terrifying, intoxicating, horrible, wonderful sensation that had flooded through him.

An eternal instant. That didn't even make sense.

But that was exactly how it had felt. An eternal instant. It had been endless, a thousand lifetimes had passed him by, but at the same time it had been over in just a few short seconds. And he hated that. That it had been over so swiftly. Because if there was one thing he was certain about, it was that he wanted it back.

It plagued his every waking hour, stalked him relentlessly even in his dreams. and he longed to feel it once more. Because despite how overwhelming it seemed in his memories, he knew that it had begun to fade the instant it had ended. That no matter the clarity with which he could recall that moment, his recollection was just a pale shadow of what he had felt, it's true intensity long since forgotten.

It scared him. This was a seriously dark curse. It was wrong and therefore everything it made feel was wrong too. What scared him even more was that he didn't think it was all the curse. Sure some of it had definitely been the curse itself, the effect of the dark magic. But not entirely.

Because as fleeting as it had been, as quickly as he had lost focus, Bellatrix had still been hit with the Cruciatus Curse. And as the spell had connected he had seen the agony in her eyes, heard her scream echo around them.

She had taken Sirius from him. His parents' deaths hurt, still, always. But it was a dull, hollow kind of hurt. It would never leave him but he had lived with it his whole life and he could deal with it as best as anyone ever really could. But this. Losing Sirius. Not just the man but everything he represented as well. That was white-hot, searing, blinding pain that had filled him, that had torn him apart. That was inescapable.

Sirius had vanished before his very eyes, never to be seen again and she had done that. She had been the one to take him away. And he had wanted her to hurt, wanted to be the one to make her hurt, the way she had hurt him. That was why he had cast the curse. And when she had screamed, when her face had contorted in torment. He had liked it. And part of that addictive sensation he found himself still craving weeks later,had been caused by the sight of her suffering.

He was supposed to be the good guy. The Boy-Who-Lived. The defeater of Voldemort. The light side's saviour. He wasn't supposed to cast dark curses. He wasn't supposed to like them. Wasn't supposed to be fantasising about how they felt after nearly a month. Wasn't supposed to enjoy torturing someone, even the enemy. And he definiteley wasn't supposed to be lying in his room, wishing he could do it again.

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Ideally this would be a dark!Harry fic. But I have no idea other than that. It could be a bad!manipulative!Dumbledore with cruel and extreme but not evil!Dark Side. Or it could be a 'the light side really are as bright and shiny and true and noble and bleh as they seem and none of them have actually deliberately done anything wrong to him but Harry still turns evil' type of story. I have no idea. But since I will probably never write any more of this outside of my head I doubt it matters. There may be spelling errors. I typed this on an iPad. I did read through looking for mistakes but its gone midnight and I want sleep more than I need this to be perfect. That said if you see a mistake message me. I'm serious. Because I do need it to be perfect. I'm obsessive like that.


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